How Pade HCM is solving the problem of employee engagement in Africa

When Lekan Omotoso and Seye Bandele met 11 years in the past in Nigeria’s capital metropolis, Abuja, they may not have guessed that they’d try to resolve a $24-billion problem via Pade HCM, the HR tech startup they’d go on to co-found. 

In 2012, they labored collectively on government-commissioned know-how tasks, Omotoso as an engineer and Bandele as an analyst. They misplaced contact for some time and reunited years later when Bandele began occupied with how know-how may clear up an employee engagement problem he’d noticed whereas working for companies of totally different sizes.  “Current employees at companies often work in isolation, focusing solely on their individual tasks. Meanwhile, new hires struggle to navigate the abundance of information about the company [such as its hierarchy, performance evaluation system, tools, and culture],” Bandele mentioned on a name with TechCabal. 

HR professionals have asserted that they’re quick on the capability to deal with high-value duties and construct sturdy employee connections attributable to repetitive and time-consuming onboarding duties like filling kinds, sending reminders, payroll, and extra. HR know-how automates these duties, releasing up HR professionals to deal with extra strategic actions.

Bandele instructed TechCabal that there have been HR tech suppliers in Nigeria, however at the time, they largely served massive companies like FMCGs. “They were relatively expensive for SMEs, and sometimes couldn’t meet their needs,” Bandele mentioned. He and Omotoso noticed a chance to make a extra reasonably priced HR know-how and seized it.

A 7-digit stroke of luck 

The two-person staff, with Omotosho dealing with the software program improvement and Bandele on the enterprise and advertising entrance, spent 18 months growing Pade, a proprietary answer for streamlined HR administration. Pade—a wordplay on paid—doesn’t solely carry out paperless (multicurrency) payroll capabilities. It additionally provides a spread of options like customized approval workflows for depart requests, promotions, efficiency monitoring, OKR administration, disciplinary administration, and customized report constructing. Pade additionally gives an employee advantages administration answer to handle medical insurance, pensions, and different advantages each domestically and internationally.

“Because we didn’t have any resources, our plan was to do something very simple and then expose it to small customers like SMEs, and then use the knowledge to make the product better,” Bandele instructed TechCabal on a name. However, solely 4 months after Pade went stay in August 2020, proper after the lockdown when organisations have been transitioning to distant/ hybrid work environments, they landed a 4 million naira ($8,705) take care of TSL logistics—a big oil and fuel logistics supplier. According to Bandele, the bootstrapped firm went on to earn an annual income of $100,000 the subsequent 12 months from contracts that stored discovering their approach to Pade regardless of the absence of paid promoting. This continued all through the lockdown, a time that made personnel administration a veritable nightmare. 

Raising half one million {dollars}

On Monday, the firm introduced that it has secured pre-seed funding of $500,000 from Zrosk IML and different traders. Before this funding,  the startup had acquired help from the Microsoft-backed FAST startup accelerator programme, which chosen the startup for its first cohort in collaboration with Flapmax. This 12 months, Pade additionally received into Expert Dojo, a world early-stage startup accelerator that has invested in African startups reminiscent of Eden Life, Trade Lenda, VipLink, Aladdin, and others.

Pade’s success reportedly trails throughout over 19 African international locations. The HR tech startup mentioned it has processed ₦3 billion (~$6.5 million) in payroll, managed information for over 10,000 workers and yielded 300% development from its subscription-based mannequin final 12 months. The CEO Bandele thinks that know-how can play an important function in overcoming the greatest expertise challenges in Africa, nevertheless it must be mixed with human efforts. He notes that workers’ calls for are always evolving, with many searching for distant work and the greatest use of their salaries. “To retain talent, employers must adapt to these demands, and technology can help with this,” he mentioned on the name. 

Speaking of these calls for, a number of HR tech startups are stepping as much as assist African companies meet the evolving wants of their workers. Morocco-based Gwala lately raised a pre-seed spherical to present extra workers real-time entry to their wage. EarniPay in Nigeria additionally makes on a regular basis payday for workers. Gwala acquired undisclosed funding, whereas EarniPay secured a $4 million seed funding final 12 months. Before that, Nigeria’s Seamless HR introduced a $10 million increase to develop its HR and payroll options throughout Africa, together with “employee marketplace”, one of its choices which provides embedded monetary companies listed as financial savings, loans, and investments, on its web site. This rings near what Pade plans to introduce in its upcoming product growth, which will probably be financed by Pade’s new pre-seed funding. Pade instructed TechCabal that it’s going to make additions to the firm’s product line that can improve employee satisfaction and customary of dwelling by providing monetary companies and decision-making data.

With projections that Africa will probably be a significant supplier of distant expertise in the world, the development potential for made-in-Africa HR tech options like Pade is enormous. The pulsating HR tech sector in the US and Southeast Asia lends much more promise to that potential. Last 12 months, the HR tech sector in the US reportedly acquired an funding value $12.4 billion from over 440 offers. A quantity of American HR tech firms have achieved unicorn standing, reminiscent of Deel, which provides international funds for distant workers, identical to Pade does. Despite solely launching in 2021, Deel already boasts an annual income of $295 million, in keeping with Forbes. “The future looks even brighter and presents a unique opportunity for Africa to not only participate in but lead the way in the digital transformation of HR,” mentioned Bandele.